The third season of The X-Files is one of the show’s strongest, and it’s during this season that Ryan Reynolds made one of his earliest TV appearances. The future Deadpool & Wolverine star shows up in the cold open of “Syzygy” and before the opening credits his corpse is hanging from a cliff. His killers lounge on the grass far above him, laughing and pulling petals from a flower.
The Death Of Boom
Fittingly, considering the future actor who would go on to be play the Merc with a Mouth, “Syzygy” is one of the more darkly humorous episodes of The X-Files. It opens with Reynolds–who plays the teenage jock nicknamed Boom–giving an awkward eulogy for his murdered friend, insisting he and his friends need to “kick some butt” just like his dead friend “is doin’ in Heaven right now.”
The real killers–teenage girls Terri and Margi–ask Boom for a ride home. Along the way they talk about how they heard a satanic cult is looking to sacrifice virgins. Without any subtlety, they suggest that if they weren’t virgins anymore, they wouldn’t have to worry.
Boom–just like Deadpool would–pulls his car off the road. Next we see, he’s “hanging out.”
The Real Killers
In spite of what everyone in the small New Hampshire town believe, neither Boom’s death nor any of the other strange events happening in the X-Files episode have anything to do with Satan. Instead, a rare planetary alignment is causing people to act weird, and in the case of Terri and Margi–who were both born on the same date and at the same time–it gives them telekinetic powers while filling them with homicidal yearnings.
But Boom’s death helps to feed the satanic panic–not only because of his demise, but because of his coffin inexplicably catching on fire during his memorial service.
Lisa Robin Kelly
Ryan Reynolds isn’t the only actor in The X-Files‘ “Syzygy” who would later enjoy more celebrity with a signature role, but the other star would unfortunately meet a tragic end.
One of the two psychic murderers of “Syzygy,” Terri is played by Lisa Robin Kelly. Two years after the airing of the X-Files episode, Kelly made her first appearance in the second episode of That ’70s Show as Laurie Forman, older sister to Topher Grace’s Eric.
Kelly struggled with substance abuse for most of her adult life, and was eventually replaced in That ’70s Show by Christina Moore.
In 2013, at the age of 43, Kelly overdosed from drugs and died in her sleep.
Mulder Vs. Scully
One of the funniest parts of “Syzygy” is a very different chemistry between The X-Files mainstays Mulder and Scully. The planetary alignment is affecting them along with everyone else, and at first this manifests nothing more than a little bit more impatience on Scully’s part, along with Mulder getting a lot more flirtatious than normal with the local detective.
Eventually it gets to the point where Mulder is getting drunk alone in his hotel room while Scully is chain-smoking in hers.
Things eventually get a lot less polite between the two. When an angry Scully complains that Mulder never lets her drive, Mulder answers, “I was just never sure your little feet could reach the pedals.”
The writers apparently used online complaints X-Files fans made about the show to write the barbs Mulder and Scully torture each other with in “Syzygy.” The “your little feet” joke came from one fan’s theory on why Scully never drove, and Gillian Anderson apparently found it particularly hilarious.
